“No oth­er type of fleet has vehi­cles that, as a job func­tion, are being used in such an extreme way, serv­ing and pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens 24–7,” said Robert Mar­tinez, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Sup­port Ser­vices Bureau for the City of New York Police Depart­ment.

As the Chair of NAFA’s new­ly renamed Law Enforce­ment Group, he knows the speci­fici­ty inher­ent in this unique fleet seg­ment. “Many com­mu­ni­ties rely on police vehi­cles and sup­port vehi­cles, K-9 unit vehi­cles, light tow­ers, and the list goes on…especially when dis­as­ters hap­pen, both nat­ur­al and man-made.”

Pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Pub­lic Safe­ty Group, NAFA’s Law Enforce­ment Group (LEG) iden­ti­fies the com­mu­ni­ty of fleet man­agers with a most spe­cial­ized skill-set: the main­te­nance of a vehi­cle fleet intend­ed to go direct­ly into harm’s way.

As such, one of the Law Enforce­ment Group’s most essen­tial func­tions is in col­lect­ing vehi­cle ser­vice reports from group mem­bers on a month­ly basis. These reports are pre­sent­ed to auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­ers in advance of NAFA’s Insti­tute & Expo (I&E) to deter­mine main­te­nance and func­tion­al­i­ty prob­lems regard­ing police vehi­cles. Through their efforts, crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion is shared and solu­tions are pre­sent­ed.

“NAFA’s LEG plays a major role in the fleet indus­try by virtue of how law enforce­ment vehi­cles are used. They rep­re­sent the prov­ing ground for auto­mo­tive equip­ment and inno­va­tion,” said NAFA Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Phillip E. Rus­so, CAE. “The infor­ma­tion the LEG gath­ers offers insight into how these machines per­form under rig­or­ous con­di­tions.”

The Group is com­prised of, and is focused on, fleet man­agers who have police and law enforce­ment vehi­cles in their fleet. The Committee’s respon­si­bil­i­ties include, but are not lim­it­ed to:
♦ Devel­op­ing top­ics and speak­ers for LEG track at the Annu­al I&E to address cur­rent and future needs and con­cerns of law enforce­ment fleet man­agers
♦ Pre­sent­ing con­cerns and rec­om­men­da­tions of LEG to NAFA’s Board of Trustees
♦ Mon­i­tor­ing leg­isla­tive, reg­u­la­to­ry, and oper­a­tional issues involv­ing law enforce­ment fleets
♦ Serv­ing as a per­son­al resource for oth­er law enforce­ment fleet man­agers

“The Law Enforce­ment Group name is a term that is wide­ly rec­og­nized with­in the fleet indus­try and is uni­ver­sal­ly used with sup­pli­ers and busi­ness part­ners; it fits the specifics of this seg­ment per­fect­ly,” con­tin­ued Rus­so, “And so the LEG’s agen­da is right in line with NAFA’s oper­a­tions and mis­sion: to deter­mine what’s best for this pro­fes­sion and get­ting there for the ben­e­fit of all fleet man­agers.”